In this paper we study the univariate return properties of a large variety of commodity futures. Our analysis shows that the volatility of commodity futures is comparable to that of US large cap stocks. Yet, with the exception of energy, a consistently positive risk premium is lacking in...

In this paper we study the multivariate return properties of a large variety of commodity futures. We find that between commodity groupings (such as metals, energy, etc.) correlations are very low and mostly insignificant whereas within groups they tend to be much stronger. In addition,...

This study analyzes the correlation of stock and bond indices for eight developed countries. We compare a country's stock-bond linkages with cross-country linkages and find that the former exhibit a negative trend in contrast to the positive trend observed for cross-country stock market and bond...

We propose three residual-based tests for conditional asymmetry. The distribution is assumed to fall into the class of skewed distributions of Fernandez and Steel (1998). In this class, asymmetry is measured by the ratio between the probabilities of being larger and smaller than the mode....

In this paper, the relation of asymmetric conditional volatility to market agents' information perception ability is built and positively tested. Liquidity dry-ups during extreme market conditions, that, due to investors' risk aversion, are more pronounced during negative than positive news...

We analyze the effect of taxes and government spending on quarterly market returns of stocks, government bonds, and corporate bonds. In US data from 1960 to 2000, a one standard deviation increase in the share of tax receipts in GDP has a statistically and economically significant effect on...

This paper investigates the impacts of the introduction of the euro on the pattern of stock market linkages and the dynamic process of stock market integration over the period from 1989-2003. On a regional level, we examine integration among stock market indices of European Union (EU) countries...

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between daily stock and government bond returns of selected countries over the past decade to infer the state and progress of inter-financial market integration. We proceed to empirically investigate the influence of the European Monetary Union (EMU)...

We estimate arbitrage-free term structure models of US Treasury yields and spreads on BBB and Brated corporate bonds in a doubly-stochastic intensity-based framework. A novel feature of our analysis is the inclusion of macroeconomic variables - indicators of real activity, inflation and...

We study the impact of the arrival of macroeconomic news on the informational and noise-driven components in high-frequency quote processes and their conditional variances. Bid and ask returns are decomposed into a common (''efficient return'') factor and two market-side-specific components...